<p>Has anyone taken AP Latin before? I was wondering how difficult the exam is, how long it takes to prepare for it, how much time it requires, etc. As much information as possible would be great.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance. :)</p>
<p>I’ve heard that it is very difficult. If you have no Latin background, I definitely wouldn’t take it (that’s like self-studying for like AP Mandarin Chinese without any previous knowledge.)</p>
<p>If I had to give you an estimate, I would say you need about 3 years to prepare 
Jk, I think if you don’t know any latin, 5 months would be about good if you spent 2 hours a day on it. Just guessing, based on my past experience of actually self-studying languages (like French and Russian).</p>
<p>I take AP Latin and have an A or A+. But if you have not taken Latin for the last 4 years like I did, dont self study it. In other words, do not learn the entire language in 5 months just to take the test. Its just not worth it. And though I have not yet taken the exam, the sample questions seem really difficult.</p>
<p>Also, AP Latin is Virgil Latin, which is often different than what’s generally taught in schools.</p>
<p>Yeah, learning Vergil is different from learning grammar, but if you dont know the grammar, you cant learn Vergil.</p>
<p>AP Latin is ridiculously hard.</p>
<p>Haven’t taken it. But still ridiculous. Same goes to SAT Latin. (And I’m not exaggerating)</p>
<p>NEVER, I repeat NEVER think about self-studying Latin (especially in 5 months). That is the most ridiculous thing a person can do. The people taking the AP Latin exam are ones who have been studying it for 3, 4, or even 5 years. The test is EXTREMELY hard. I took the AP Latin Literature Test last year and it kicked my butt (more than half of the kids taking that exam got a 1 or 2 on it, as you can imagine AP Latin teachers were not very happy because they then thought the test must have been ridiculously hard). I am currently in AP Latin Vergil (which is Latin 4 at my school). I do not plan on taking the exam seeing as it would not do much for me since I am going into engineering. We are spending a year on translating the 1800+ lines of Vergil that is tested on the AP exam. If you are not familiar with the format of the exam then look at collegeboard, but of course they do not test all 1800+ lines. They do however not give you any clue as to which ones may appear on the exam. If you do not have any previous Latin background, don’t even touch the exam. If you do, make sure it’s a solid one and get translating, because you have a lot to do. There isn’t really an amount of time needed to prepare for the exam, basically it’s all on how well you know Latin. The only way to really prepare for the exam is to translate all the required lines and then be able to site translate passages out of those lines (and then there’s essays of course).</p>
<p>I don’t mean to have sounded rude or anything in that post, but the test is not one that you can simply self-study how long before (but that is assuming that you have no Latin background, and this assumption may be false). If you are however a well-prepared 3rd or 4th year Latin student who is in an AP Latin class, then go ahead and take the exam. It is really hard though, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I agree with Salve, it’s that difficult. My school, no surprise, doesn’t offer Latin, and that’s one AP I really, really want to take. I am going to maybe take a college course this summer, and then self-study the rest of Junior year and take the AP then. On the plus side of things, I bet the curve is great.</p>
<p>And also note: it is not impossible to self study a language. I have done so with several languages, including French and Russian (studied to AP level so far). Just make sure that you have at least a few hours to devote to study each night, and good resources. You could do it if you really wanted to.</p>
<p>self-studying Latin will be very different than self-studying other languages because Latin is all translation.</p>
<p>But the problem is that because of its grammatical format, most of the time, you have to look into the context to figure out what it means and that is very difficult and very vague because it can mean many many things. That is because in Latin, the order of words don’t matter, so, say, an adjective can possibly modify many different things with the same gender, number, and case.</p>
<p>Very true, maruhan2. But because Latin is all translation, I consider it easier than a modern language for the most part (I have also studied ancient greek and found it easy to translate). </p>
<p>As to the meaning of what you’re actually translating, you’re very correct- and that’s what makes any classic language difficult. So a solution? The best method, in my opinion, is to purchase a pure Latin edition of any book, and then the English translation. Work through the Latin edition, while making sure you understand it by cross-referencing it to the English copy. This has been extremely helpful to me, and by the time you finish your book, you should not only have a better vocabulary, but a better understanding when it comes to interpretation.</p>
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<p>This is very true (considering I have also been studying Italian on my own), but to try to get to an AP level in 5 months is ridiculous. Also, Latin is different than the modern languages (as maruhan2 said) seeing as it is a classical language. You must have a solid foundation in the language before even thinking of translating great authors such as Caesar, Catullus, Vergil, Livy, and the likes. Some people are just naturally able to pick up languages easily while others struggle with it.</p>
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<p>This is exactly what we do in my AP Latin class. We have our large book of Latin, then we use books that have notes on translating. We then go through and translate using the guidance of this book and after check our translation with an English copy. There is, however, a big problem with this if you don’t have a clear background in Latin, not all translations are correct and not all are very good. You will oftentimes get translations that more of “English-ifies” the Latin making it make more sense in an English context. Therefore, you will not get the literal Latin to English translation, but rather a prettied English translation. And you have to be able to make the calls, if you have something different than what the translation has, are you necessarily wrong? No. You could be spot on, but either the translation could be wrong or you could have just translated it in a way that is correct but still different than them. We have to make calls all the time when cross-referencing with our supposed literal translation copy because it is not always right. It may translate something in the present tense when it is clearly in the imperfect etc. If you want to learn a classical language you have to start at the bottom and work your way up. This can be done by purchasing a textbook. Even then, it is much more difficult without the guidance of a teacher, because you can very well interpret something wrong. My suggestion, yes cross-referencing is good, but make sure you understand what it is you are doing also.</p>
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<p>Woah there! Step back for a second. Latin is harder because it IS all translation and so are the other classical languages. With a modern language, you have people speaking it all the time and you can easily immerse yourself in the language (something that is highly recommended when learning a new language). You can in no way easily do this with a classical language. Why yes, you can surround yourself with Latin text, but if you go and try to find someone who can speak fluent Latin I doubt you will get very far. You don’t have that extra conditioning that is a part of conversational language and therefore it is much harder to master words and concepts. The only way you are exposed to new words is through text, and then you are simply associating this text with another word in English. Yes, you can very well try to associate the word with a real-life object, but when speaking a language you automatically start associating words with objects or actions rather than with another English word. I can certainly say that people become fluent in languages because they do this, they associate words with just what they are instead of what they mean in English. Imagine trying to speak to someone who only speaks Italian and you are trying to translate their words to English while listening. I do not believe that that is what people do, they just simply associate that word to an object just like we associate our english words to an object. So basically moral of the story is, classical languages are certainly not easier than modern languages because we cannot be as immersed in them.</p>
<p>I just wanted to clear that up.</p>
<p>Haha, sorry for the long post too, I didn’t realize just how much I typed.</p>
<p>While that may be true for a lot of people, translation is easy for me. I am a language person, and find that translation immerses myself even more into the language, if you do it the right way. Just my personal opinion and preference. It’s essentially what you are doing when you read a book in a foreign language- your mind is translating it (unless you are at an extreme level of fluency). Anyway, this point we disagree upon, Salve. </p>
<p>And just a side note, how is your Italian coming along? My father is a native Italian and I have spoken since birth. It’s a fairly easy language to learn, I wish you success in your ventures! Unfortunately I cannot say the same for Russian, but after two years of hard work, I am approaching a level at which I can speak fluently with one of my best friends. </p>
<p>Haha, well obvious languages are a fascinating subject! And one of my passions at that. It is important to note that neither Salve or I are holistically correct, seeing as everyone learns differently (hence our disagreement).</p>
<p>Yes, it depends largely upon the person. Some, like WannaBYalie, are able to pick up on languages easily, while some fall sort (like I stated in my above post). But what I’m saying is that with other languages you get both the translation and auditory aspects, while Latin all you can do is look at a book. So I actually think it’s harder, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Well, with all the other stuff I haven’t been getting into my Italian much. My father’s side is also very much Italian (except he is not native). It does seem easy so far. Thanks! Good luck with Russian too, my Physics teacher was in Russia for a few years and he can actually speak it decently well. I’m hoping to top of my language learning with Polish (which my grandma speaks, but not as much anymore) so that I can encompass my mother’s side too.</p>
<p>Anyway, to the original question… haha. The latin AP test is ridiculous as I previously stated.</p>
<p>Polish, how fascinating! Poland is such a beautiful country, one I hope to visit thoroughly in the future. And yes, Italian is pretty hard, didn’t mean to demean that fact, but I meant comparatively to a language like Mandarin Chinese (haha, all languages are hard, some easier than others ). Great that you are studying the languages of your heritage! More people, in my opinion, should do so :)</p>
<p>Mandarin Chinese IS hard. The AP test is easy but the language itself is hard.</p>
<p>Yes, I started learning it from a friend’s mom who teaches Mandarin and found it quite challenging. But yeah, I’ve heard that the AP test isn’t too difficult, and it has the highest national average (only two people who took the test in my state last year got something other than a 5).</p>
<p>I’ve heard that AP Latin can be a vicious b***h but isn’t SAT II Latin supposed to be easier? Can anyone clarify?</p>
<p>SAT II Latin is very different from an AP test, yet still very hard.</p>
<p>I took the SAT II Latin test. I was the best in my class, (although there were only 4 guys including me) and Latin is the most I studied for any SAT II tests, and yet I only got a 700.</p>
<p>By the way, as a reference, I have 800s on 4 other SAT IIs. All on one shot.</p>
<p>Latin Multiple Choice is a killer. My latin teacher said that the MC even makes her feel stupid…</p>
<p>Multiple choice is all right if you’ve been immersed in Latin for a while. A lot of it is sight passages and analyzing them, and it’s not too difficult because most of the questions ask about tenses and meanings (some even straight translations). </p>
<p>One common misconception about Latin is that the words often appear in any order. This is false and real Latin is, most of the time, structured according to specific syntactical rules (you may not realize this until you think about it and look back at Virgil). This makes it even harder for a Latin virgin to move into Virgil, since experience makes it easier to (knowingly and unknowingly) meet these structures.</p>